


Here be dragons

by Syrena_of_the_lake



Series: Syrena's 3-sentence fics [17]
Category: Original Work
Genre: 3 Sentence Ficathon, 3 Sentence Fiction, Academia, Gen, Marginalia - Freeform, illuminated manuscript
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 15:13:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20194321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syrena_of_the_lake/pseuds/Syrena_of_the_lake
Summary: A story in three stages and across the ages, of a scribe who doodled dragons in the margins of medieval manuscripts.





	1. Illuminated: The Monk’s Tale

**Author's Note:**

> For ernest, who prompted "Academia, text/marginalia, here be dragons" in the 2018 3-sentence ficathon.

“Not literal dragons!” roared Brother Barnabas, who was shaped like a blacksmith and bellowed like a bull and behaved not at all like a scribe of holy texts. 

Brother Cyril, reedy and stooped like an apprentice scribe should be, pointed at the offending page with its swirls of red flames and a shower of golden scales, protesting “But your note in the margin said—“ 

“I was referring to your atrocious spelling!” Brother Barnabas turned almost as scarlet as the illustrated dragon he resembled (circumstantially, of course), and then he threw up his hands and stalked away, muttering “Judas the Chariot and his thrifty pieces of sliver, harrumph!”


	2. Irritated: The Medieval Literature Professor’s Tale

“But that wasn’t in the text,” objected half a dozen students, and Professor Barnaby took off his wire-rimmed glasses to better glare at his class without distortion.

“How many times do I have to tell you to read the marginalia, not simply squint at it — and don’t tell me you are reading the ebook version on your phones, my heart couldn’t take it.”

Professor Barnaby looked down at the textbook open on his desk, the rows of neatly scribed letters reproduced on its glossy pages, the faint but elegantly scrawled scribbles in the margins, and the gold-and-crimson dragon winking up at him from its position curled around the capital letter — surely the work of the renowned calligrapher Cyril of Parnassus should never be reduced to mere pixels on a screen?


	3. Illustrated: The Millennial’s Tale

“We had a test on the Cyril manuscript this morning — you know, the one I told you about who hid dragons on all his pages? — well old Professor Barnaby is a bit of a dragon himself,” Daria spoke loudly into the phone, not so much to rant as just to make herself heard.

“He tested us on the marginalia, can you believe it? No, Grandma, no no no, not genitalia — it’s drawings and junk in the margins, I mean illustrations of biblical stuff — Grandma, no, _please_ don’t tell my mom I’m studying genitalia!”


End file.
